In which year did the United States Justice Department contend that it is
unnecessary to pass a law prohibiting intentional racial discrimination?

a. (1857)

b. (1865)

c. (1964)

None of the above. The answer is actually 1995. The absurdity into which
much of the traditional civil rights orthodoxy has devolved was brought into
bold Orwellian relief during Congressional hearings on the Equal Opportunity
Act of 1995. [The House Judiciary and Economic and Educational Opportunity
Committees have held hearings on the bill. Votes are expected within the next
month in those committees.]

The Act, sponsored in the House by Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fl) and in the
Senate by Sen. Robert Dole (R-KS) prohibits the federal government, its
contractors and sub-contractors from according preferential treatment on the
basis of race, sex or ethnicity. The bill defines preferential treatment as
racial/sexual/ ethnic quotas, set asides or other numerical objectives.

Under the Act, all existing anti-discrimination laws remain in full force
and effect. It is wholly consistent with the protections contained in the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. Moreover, it even preserves affirmative action as it
was originally conceived, i.e., before it metastasized into a Byzantine spoils
system replete with clever mechanisms for counting by race.

For example, the bill would uphold the practice of casting wide recruitment
nets to snare the highest number of qualified applicants. The federal
government may continue to encourage employers to recruit at historically black
colleges and to advertise job openings in publications or other media directed
toward minority audiences. Or the government may direct that companies
establish recruitment offices or conduct job fairs in neighborhoods easily
accessible to minorities. But the government is forbidden from dictating that
employers set numerical hiring objectives. The goal of the bill, quite simply,
is to eliminate government pressure to hire on the basis of race, sex or
ethnicity.

Enter Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick, the Justice Department's
top official in charge of civil rights enforcement. Expressing the Clinton
Administration's strong opposition to the bill, Patrick recently argued before
the House subcommittee on the Constitution that "the bill's prohibition
against intentional discrimination, taken at face value is quite unnecessary
and, in reality, potentially counterproductive."

To maintain in 1996 that it is counterproductive to prohibit the federal
government from engaging in intentional racial discrimination is nothing short
of breathtaking. Yet, Mr. Patrick's comments accurately reflect the
regressive, indeed inverted, reasoning of today's group rights lobby.

Mr. Patrick launched a fusillade against the bill's prohibition against
numerical objectives in affirmative action plans. He vehemently disputes that
numerical standards lead inexorably to quotas.

The Administration, to put it politely, is being disingenuous. Perhaps in
the theoretical atmosphere of policy papers and law review articles numerical
objectives may not necessarily lead to quotas. But in the bottom line-oriented
real world, they nearly invariably do.

And the government is fully aware of that fact. For it is the government's
own scrutiny of employers' affirmative action programs that render numerical
objectives inherently coercive.

Suppose you are the owner of a medium-size business. A large portion of
your business, and consequently your company's very existence, is dependent on
government contracts. Government regulations require that you maintain an
affirmative action program containing "numerical objectives" that set
forth the number of minorities you plan to hire in each job classification.
The purported aim of the numerical objective is to ensure that minorities are
not "underutilized" by your company.

One day you get a visit from your friendly neighborhood bureaucrat from the
OFCCP, the agency charged with monitoring affirmative action compliance. From
a cursory review of your plan, he determines that you may not have enough
Aleuts employed as widget makers. You disagree, contending that you have done
everything you can to hire Aleuts but have been unable to meet your numerical
objective. The battle is joined.

An audit is conducted. You hire lawyers. A blizzard of paperwork ensues.
Financial penalties are imposed or, even worse, you are debarred from
government work.

Or you could take the easy way. Don't dispute the bureaucrat. Simply hire
Aleuts regardless of qualifications or necessity, thereby keeping investigators
and lawyers at bay and keeping your company in business.

Most businessmen would choose to stay in business rather than embark on a
Quixotic crusade against an intractable government. So they fill the ...
quota.

And the opponents of the Equal Opportunity Act know that is precisely what
is happening. They know that quotas are masquerading as a benign "affirmative
action." So they vigorously assail any attempts to end the fraud. For
they also know the end of quotas is near, along with much of their political
capital.

-by Peter Kirsanow, a member of the National Advisory Council of Project
21, and also a labor lawyer for Leaseway Transportation in Cleveland, Ohio

Note: New Visions Commentaries reflect the opinions of their author and not
necessarily those of Project 21.